augmentive

English

Etymology

augment +‎ -ive

Adjective

augmentive (comparative more augmentive, superlative most augmentive)

1. Serving to augment, enhance, or increase; augmentative.
   • 1936, Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine:

     The data leave little doubt that the augmentive power of these blood samples was much greater from the formed elements than from the plasma.

   • 1980, International Computer Software & Applications Conference, Proceedings - Volume 4, Part 1980, page 221:

     The third class of tools are augmentive tools which extend the capabilities of the developers in much the same way in which saws, hammers and screwdrivers extend the capabilities of carpenters.

   • 2012, William Mayer, hysiological Mammalogy - Volume 1, page 307:

     Furthermore, it is very likely that the adaptive reactions to density and their effects may overlap food shortages, so that their effects are mutually augmentive at critical densities.

2. Supplementary; additional.
   • 1994, Administrative Register of Kentucky - Volume 21, Issues 4-8, page 1350:

     A planting report as described in subsection (1) of this section shall also be submitted to the cabinet if any augmentive reseeding or replanting, or other augmentive work, is performed within the permit area.

   • 2011, Harry Harrison, The Stainless Steel Rat Sings the Blues: The Stainless Steel Rat:

     I have the requisite authority to provide augmentive information to you concerning the history and tragic circumstance of the loss.

   • 2015, Stephen J. Farenga, Daniel Ness, Encyclopedia of Education and Human Development:

     For many children and youth who are unable to acquire language or use speech, augmentive communication and assistive technology may be important alternatives.

3. (linguistics) Changing the meaning to one that is a larger, more complete, or more elaborate version of the original sense.
   • 1816, James Gilchrist, Philosophic Etymology: Or Rational Grammar, page 118:

     Observe, that as ry is augmentive, it is not usual to give it a plural form, (for the plural termination is in a certain sense augmentive,)

   • 1819, Pantologia:

     As an opposite to dys, let en (ry) as an augmentive particle, as we have it in en-harmonia, en-telechia, and en-ergetic.

   • 1824, James Gilchrist, The etymologic interpreter, page 195:

     We, like the French, have not any vernacular augmentive affix of nouns: such words as village, salon, &c., were borrowed in the compound state from the Italians.

Noun

augmentive (plural augmentives)

1. (linguistics) An augmentive affix; augmentative.
   • 1816, james Gilchrist, Philosophic Etymology: Or Rational Grammar:

     This coincidence between the numeral and the augmentive (for both are resolvable into the same etymon) has occasioned all my perplexity in deciding whether connectives ought to be resolved into augmentives, or augmentives into connectives; for, as we shall presently see, they are closely connected.

   • 1992, Cynthia Robb Clamons, Gender in Oromo, page 108:

     Marking the noun in agreement with the class associated with diminutives (or augmentives) instead of the agreement class it is ordinarily associated with indicates that a speaker is evaluating the referent as small (or large) with respect to a certain domain.

   • 1993, UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics - Issue 84, page 162:

     While it is clear that the augmentive involves the imposition of velar articulation on the segment, there was some variation in the actual realization of this articulation.

2. Something that augments.
   • 1924, Maurice Hewlett, Last Essays, page 113:

     The chief thing which they point out to me is that there was no religious sense in the peasantry at all. The names and symbols of worship were augmentives of conversation, but no more.